The Colt Journal, ride 14: Leigh Lake

Swimming day, how fun!

Last Saturday the Back Country Horsemen went on a ride to swim horses in Leigh Lake. They do some fun rides, so Robin and I are going to join. They also have informative meetings and there is some opportunity to support and get involved in the political aspect of horses (trails, horses in parks, etc.) so it sounds like fun.

The ride was easy and flat to the lake, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to take Smooch on a trail ride with a group of horses (and take him swimming to boot!). Our friend Jayme (also a mule guy) couldn't get his mule, Big Momma, over the pass so I loaned him Sara for the day. More on that later.

I don't have a lot to say about the ride except that Smooch behaved Smoochingly (it's a word I invented to describe Smooch's smooth, calm demeanor and willingness to do pretty much anything I ask of him, so that's what Smoochingly means). He was fine with being in a group of strange horses, he kept up for the most part (he is still a slow mover) and he even jumped a small log in the trail. On the way back there were a handful of people portaging canoes and kayaks (ie, carrying them on top of their heads) to the lake and Smooch didn't even acknowledge them. On our Colorado trip there were some canoes by a lake that Smooch didn't seem to like, so I made him ride through them until he wasn't bothered anymore. It just goes to show that when you have an opportunity to show your horse something in a safe situation, you should take advantage of it because it may pay off one day when you don't have so much control of things, like canoes coming at you down the trail.

So Jayme and Sara. Jayme is quite used to mules. He also grew up with gaited horses. I was anxious for him to ride Sara because I've suspected for some time that she is gaited. Turns out I was right. Jayme brought his own treeless saddle and crupper. A crupper acts like a britchen in keeping the saddle from sliding forward, except that instead of a harness around the mule's hind end, it is a strap that attaches to the back of the saddle and loops around the base of the tail. Sara really seemed to enjoy the saddle. I know she's ridden in a crupper before, but I just think a britchen looks cool. Anyway, I kept waiting for the moment and then it happened...Jayme commented on Sara's walk. He had tried to get her to trot and she went into gait. Verified. Vindicated. Well, not so much vindicated as relieved that I wasn't imagining things. So Katherine, there you go, that's why Dusty felt like "that mule". She is gaited. Jayme had fun gaiting her during the ride. And I had fun watching. Of course Smooch would have to trot to catch up, but he didn't mind so long as he got to keep up with his Sara. I think I'll buy a crupper because it really seemed to free Sara up and she seemed more willing to go into gait.

We got to the lake and stripped off the horses. We had been told in advance that the operation was bare back and bridleless. So everyone de-tacked, changed into shorts, and headed to the water. Some people seemed impressed how well Smooch stood while I hopped on from a log. Hmmm, first time bare back on him. I'm used to a more filled out and substantial horse (Amigo, who is very pleasant to ride bare back when he is behaving). I found the skinny, bony backed little two year old difficult to bare back. I really had to wrap my legs around him to stay on. And to my surprise he followed the other horses right into the water. He didn't even seem to pay attention to one or two rodeos going on around us. But all in all everyone did well. No one got hurt. Sara wouldn't go deeper than her belly and Jayme had no control with the rope halter, so he ditched her for a painted horse.

We rode in circles as a group, making the circles bigger until the horses were swimming. Smooch, not quite understanding what was going on put up some fuss, but not much and not as much as I thought he would. We basically just circled until I was crotch deep, and then his back disappeared in the water. We were instructed to dismount once the horse was actually swimming and hold onto the mane and swim along with the horse. You can imagine that Smooch isn't very buoyant, being mostly bone and muscle, so it was difficult for him. I could feel his body sinking until his back legs hit bottom, and then he would push off until they would sink and hit again. But he did great. And after the first swim, he let me jump right back on in the water. The next few circles and I could tell he was getting cold and tired. At one point he wouldn't stand still for me to mount. But I was having so much fun I didn't want to quit. Jayme fell off his horse once, and then I fell off Smooch while mounting (he began running toward shore and I was still hanging over his rear and trying to pull my swim suit up at the same time). I figured that was the end. There were only two or three of us still in the water, so I collected my horse, mounted in the water, and called it a day. Luckily, our friend Pam was taking some pictures towards the end, so you get to see Robin, Jayme and myself swimming our horses! By the way, Rocky did great too!

Me and Robin (photos by Pam)

Getting deeper...

Swimming! That's Jayme on the paint, me and Robin past him.

Jayme fell off!

Some rest.

Down we go. I'm just about to hop off.

Robin took some candid shots on the way back.

The Colt Journal, ride 13: Wilson Arena

I am almost a week and a couple of rides behind in my journal, so bear with me. I have been a little concerned for the health of my colt given that he is only two and a young two at that (physically speaking). He has a lot more physical development to go through, so I am going slow. I am watching him closely. I may or may not get 30 rides in by the end of the season, but he will be ready for some hunting this fall, and he will be ready for mounted patrol next spring. I wanted to address this age issue because many horse people are unilaterally against breaking a two year old. The concern is that their bones and joints are not developed enough to sustain the weight of a rider without possible permanent damage. There are a lot of horses out there that are racing, roping, and doing all kinds of performance activities while they are two year olds. And a certain percentage of them break down by the time they are 4 or 5, or even younger. That's not what I am doing. In fact, a certain percentage of horses aren't sound enough to make it through their first 30 days no matter how old they are. I'm not an experienced horseman, so I only have expert advice to go off of. I have chosen to go with the advice of people who tell me it is ok to ride my two year old. I am inclined, in my inexperienced opinion, to think that the advantages of an early mental and physical development during a "light" first season as a two year old will in the long run produce a better horse. If I ruin my colt with the light work I am doing with him, then there was probably something wrong to begin with. Counter to the argument of a two year old not being developed enough to ride, I think that a certain amount of exercise and riding will help better develop a healthy colt. It is well known that performing athletics physically changes the skeletal structure of a body. It adds muscle mass, thickens and strengthens bones, adds flexibility. Conversely, injury at such an early age can do the opposite. So it is my goal to find that balance of athletics and safety in these early days so that Smooch is still active and athletic when he is in his 20's. It's kind of like children, there are some parents who shelter their kids their whole life, and there are some that have them playing soccer and football by the time they are 5. I tend to believe that an early development is better, as long as the proper care is taken. Enough of that...onto ride 13.

I took Smooch to Wilson arena again last Wednesday. There was a group (a children's clinic) there ahead of me that was still riding in the arena after their class ended when I went in at 7 pm. It irked me that the woman in charge couldn't rein in her riders and teach them arena etiquette. I was immediately confronted by a child and her horse who "has to greet every new horse". It was obvious that the girl's horse was in charge of her and she had little control over it. I had to tell her to back her horse off so I could go about my business. Not my job. If that woman is going to let her children ride with other people during open riding, she needs to teach them control and etiquette. And it got worse when the fathers of the children got on the horses and started "riding" (for better lack of a word) bareback around the arena. It was a rodeo. Good thing Smooch could care less about such goings on. I did have him bridled for this ride. It is amazing how quiet he is with the bit so soon. I was working a little on bending again, but with so much going on in the arena, my main focus was on avoiding the circus and letting Smooch soak it all in. I'm not complaining. I seek out such places because it is good for a youngster to be exposed to such raucous. So I started working on side passing, and then on transitions from walk to trot and my diagonals. To add to her discredit, the clinician woman left four horses tied to the inside of the arena rail while she took the first batch of horses home. That's a no no at any time, let alone to just leave them there unattended with people using the arena. You don't tie horses to the inside rail of an arena. You just don't. Ever. Got that?

Then, the coup de crace (not really, I just wanted to use the word), a work crew with a very large cherry picker (you've seen them at construction sites, they have four wheels and a boom and bucket for getting people into high places) drove into the arena to adjust the lights. They did warn us in advance. And I was excited to see how Smooch would handle things. I took Smooch to the opposite end of the arena when the cherry picker drove in. He didn't even notice. So I rode him across the arena past it. He was concerned about crossing the tracks it had made. After the guy got it situated and got the boom up to the light fixture, I asked if I could ride up next to it. Smooch walked right up to it and spooked when my foot got caught on the tire. But when Smooch spooks, it isn't so much a spook as he is just a little alarmed. He just kind of scoots a few steps. So I turned him to face the tire, let him sniff if and then let him examine the rest of the machine. Remember that I've already desensitized Smooch to tractors, so it didn't surprise me that he was not concerned. The guy started it up, lowered the boom and drove to the next light. All without so much as a blink from Smooch. We followed right behind (in it's tracks) and watched from close by as he raised the boom to the next light. While my horse sat quietly by and watched.

After that I decided it was time to quit, with just one more task at hand...open and close the arena gate. Which Smooch did without too much complaining. Much better than last time.

The Colt Journal, ride 12 continued

I was having problems uploading pictures for ride 12, so this is part two.

We left off just before the water crossing at Lake Creek (shown across and back for photo ops). Photos by Robin (well, Rocky wasn't taking them).

Notice the calm demeanor of both rider and horse, and the erect posture and gentle hands of the rider. Do my hands look gentle, Katherine? It helps to have such a good horse to make this look easy. What you may not see unless you are looking closely is that the colt was still a little apprehensive about this water crossing (his first alone) and I was having to "ride" him across. The fact that he trusts me so much at this point in his training says a lot of him.

For the second part of the ride, Robin wanted to ride north along the bike path next to the Village Road (it goes to Teton Village where the world famous Jackson Hole ski slopes are) to see if the State land would make for good riding. If nothing else, I figured it would be good experience for Smooch. So we headed north along the bike path. Neither of us was sure if we were supposed to be riding horses on it, but we figured if one pooped, we would just kick it off the path. A bicycle went by. Robin asked me if Smooch had ever seen bicycles. Of course silly, you were with me on the ride up Pole Canyon! But a bicycle could just as well be a fence post in his own pasture for all Smooch cares, so on we went. He was more worried about the white stripe painted across the asphalt path, which he investigated, determined was not dangerous, and never looked at them again the entire ride. We rode maybe a few miles...never making it to the State land before deciding to turn around and head back. The asphalt paving with sap from the Cotton Wood trees made things very slippery, so we rode next to the path in the grass on the way back. You would think both horses hadn't eaten in a week the way they were grabbing at the grass stalks the entire ride back. I picked up a piece of litter, a plastic water bottle, on the way back and found it had a very loud crinkle sound when squeezed. Very nice for sound desensitization...Smooch never paid it any mind, even when I held it out front and proceeded to squeeze and crinkle it to death.

About a quarter mile from home I decided to do a little road desensitization and pulled Smooch up next to the busy highway for the rest of the ride. He didn't mind anything including the RVs that were driving by. I think this guy is going to make a nice mounted patrol horse!

The Colt Journal, ride 12: Snake River Ranch

This story starts out last week when the horses (except for Smooch who was in solitary confinement due to some barbed wire injuries) got out into the neighboring Snake River Ranch. Robin found the gate down and my theory is that a ranch hand left the gate open after monkeying with the flood irrigation control devices in the pasture that Robin leases from the ranch. Anyway, she was out all morning collecting horses and had to cross Lake Creek, which I didn't even realize was there (I thought it was a small creek or maybe an irrigation canal). After examining the property and inspecting fences later that afternoon (I hate barbed wire!!!), I found this wonderful warm water creek (Lake Creek) that had a bridge over it leading to the Snake River Ranch property. Actually it is the Snake River Ranch property, creek and all. So I had another brilliant idea for a ride. I wanted to take Smooch out with Rocky (who is a strong horse and has no problems with obstacles or water crossings) and work on crossing this fairly imposing bridge, and maybe even some water crossings. Robin had a friend that used to ride through the ranch up to Ski Lake in the National Forest. We didn't exactly have permission to ride through the Ranch, but Robin thought it would be OK, so we decided to investigate a possible route to Ski Lake.

On the way out we crossed the bridge. Smooch has never had a problem with bridges, but this one was a little imposing and had a step off on the other side. These pictures are from the second pass over (over and back), the first was led by Rocky. Pictures are once again, by Robin.

We rode through the pasture along the creek and over a few irrigation canals. Getting Smooch to cross them was difficult because they are narrow, deep, and muddy. Once I had to get off and lead him over (which he did with a great leap!). There were also many boggy areas which are great practice because most horses (including Smooch) naturally have a fear of deep mud. It wasn't long before he was a pro at boggy mud. Having a strong horse like Rocky to lead the way through is a great training tool to avoid a fight. We found a possible way to Ski Lake, but there was a closed gate and it was posted. So we turned around and headed back.

On the way back I wanted to cross the creek. Robin said "great, why not", but it took some explaining on my part that I meant through the water, not over the bridge. She was OK with that too. So we found a nice place to cross above stream from the bridge and Rocky led the way again. Then it was across and back again for photos.

To be continued...

The Colt Journal, ride 11: Fort Collins, Co.

My appologies to my Colorado relatives for not connecting on my visit, but we were on a mission of sorts and time didn't permit a trip to Denver.

Sorry, no pictures of this one.

Robin gave one of her ponies to a friend who recently moved from Jackson to Ft. Collins. I was glad to see him go (the pony, not the friends) because he was overly dominant and I hate having a horse like that around (if I haven't mentioned, my horses are living at Robin's for the remainder of the summer and were getting chased around and beat up by the little shit). Part of the deal was that Robin was going to deliver the pony, so I decided to make the road trip with her. The pony has some issues with traveling alone, so I had the brilliant idea of taking our horses along, camping out, and riding in one of the parks in the north Colorado area. For the most part, it went really, really well. It was great travel experience for Smooch, who it turns out is a great traveler. He was calm, ate well, took water (very important for horse traveling), and was a perfect horse the entire time.

But I was dissapointed that we never made it camping or to a park. We ended up staying with Robin's friend. Their neighborhood has a neat-o common horse facility that is open to the residents who pay a monthly fee to keep horses there. It's a nice facility located centrally in the neigborhood and had room for Rocky and Smooch to board for the night (Rocky is Robin's horse, you know who Smooch is). Supposedly there are trails throughout the nieghborhood, so we just decided to ride those for the afternoon. The "trails" amounted to a two track road that followed the levy on an irrigation canal. It wasn't the most exciting ride, but I was surprised with all of the agriculture in Ft. Collins. We road through several corn fields on our ride before turning around and riding back through the subdivision. Smooch had thrown a shoe at some point probably before we even left, so I bought a pair of those rubber "Simple Boots" at a local tack store. I'm not sure I like them, but they did the job and Smooch was more or less sound for the ride. I could tell the boot was a little bothersome, but good colt that he is he got over it.

Other than that, the ride was uneventful. We had a great time hanging out with the Coxhead family for the weekend. They are a very friendly and hospitable family. The kids fell in love with Bullwinkle, the pony, and to our surprise Bullwinkle settled in to his new home without too much complaining. The youngest girl, Sarah Grace, seemed to take a liking to Smooch. By the time we were leaving on Sunday, she wanted to lead Smooch around everywhere, brush him out, etc.

So mission accomplished, we headed home for another uneventful, albeit long and late ride home.

The Colt Journal, day 10: Wilson Arena

Here we are, 1/3 of the way through our 30 day summer program.
My herd is spending some time at Robin's place so they can get nice and fat on fresh, green grass, so I drove over after work, Robin and I loaded up Smooch and one of her youngsters, Darby, and we headed to the Wilson arena near her house. Darby is 4 (?) and hasn't been ridden in two years since she was started.
I did a little ground work on Smooch (not enough, but it was getting late) and then took Darby for a while. I worked her long enough to determine that 1) she is a lot like Smooch in that she is confident (although not quite as much as Smooch) and dominant, and has 2) forgotten so much that she needs to totally re-ground school before this buck-a-roo gets on her. She had absolutely no respect and tried to run me over just like Smooch had done his first days of ground school. I didn't let her, rest assured.
With not much daylight left, I rode Smooch (rope halter) around the arena working mostly on trotting. I tried a little loping, but will leave that for later when I start driving him on a 20 foot line from the ground (those ropes are expensive, so I don't have one yet....I'm stealing Robin's for now). There were some barrels and poles in the arena so I took him through those a few times and then left the arena.
To finish the evening with, I decided it was time to start side passing so we can do gates without any fuss. Outside the gate (we managed to get it opened) Smooch didn't want to press back into the gate so I could pull it shut. It's pretty typical of a horse just learning....it is not natural for a horse to press into anything other than another horse. Plus, what have I been teaching since he started in May? "move away from pressure". It's the basis behind controlling a horse, but at some point the horse needs to learn that although he is moving away from your pressure, you may be moving him into something else. That something else could be a fence (to mount or dismount from), a gate, a cow, a trailer, a person or group of people such as a police horse may encounter, etc. It's not any easy thing to teach. So I started by placing him in front of the fence line, head towards the fence and body at a 90 degree angle (perpendicular)to the fence. Then I worked on passing him down the fence, first to the right and then to the left and back and forth until he had is reasonably well down. Then back at the gate that we never finished closing, I tried passing him into it so as to grab hold and shut it. It took a few minutes because Smooch was really determined that he didn't need to be pressed into that gate. It's like a tug of war against the horse, and it's an attack (approach) and retreat kind of thing. You gain some ground, lose some ground, retreat, get the horses confidence back, attack again, gain some ground, lose some ground and so on until he learns that you mean for him to press that gate. He knows how to side pass now, but not in this context. It's less of a matter of him understanding at this point than him just not tolerating being pressed to that gate. It's the same thing with anything that a horse won't tolerate such as touching an ear or desensitizing him to an object such as a plastic bag....approach and retreat until sooner or later the approaches outnumber the retreats. But you have to be fair and know what you are doing. In the end, the horse must win, just not on his terms. So after about five minutes of approach and retreat, I had him standing within arm's length of the gate, pulled it shut, called him a good boy and called it a day.

The Colt Jounal, Day 9: Poker Flats, Grand Targhee National Park

I told Robin that I really needed to get Smooch out on a trail ride, and we'd been trying to take her three girls on a ride, so we decided to do it all on Sunday. I brought Smooch and Sara over. Sara was for Robin's oldest, Claire, to ride. She was looking forward to riding Sara the mule and the two really seemed to bond. The twins, Rose and Grace, rode two of Robin's horses.

It was one of those rides where everything seemed to go right as planned with the exception of two of the girls who really didn't want to be there (Claire was sick). But their mom made them all go anyway because they are going out of town with their dad and will be gone the rest of the month.

The Poker Flats trails are easy. We more or less did a shortened and modified version of the trail we did with my folks when they were here. Smooch and I led the way so Robin could be in the back with the girls (poor thing sucked in dust the whole ride). As far as training, this was a huge confidence builder for Smooch. He led the way with lots of confidence, and I kept hearing one of the girls saying "I can't believe how well Bryan's horse is doing". For the most part, she was right. Most of the ride for me was single handed (I was working on neck reigning) except for when Smooch either wanted to eat grass of take off on his own direction. There was one spot at the end where there was a mud bog after coming off of a bridge. Smooch really wanted nothing to do with that mud bog, I got his rope rein tangled (I was riding with rope halter again sans bit), and it took a few minutes to clear things up and get through (or rather around). I now have plans to build a bridge and a mud bog in my yard to work on this....either that or I'll go back one day this week and work on it at that spot.

Everyone made it back to the trailers safe and sound except for Claire who got her foot stepped on by Smooch before we had even started (sorry Claire).

Here are a few pictures taken by Robin:

Me and Smooch

Claire on Sara

Rose (pink helmet) and Grace (blue helmet)

The dusty trail from Robin's perspective

The Colt Journal, day 8: Driggs Fairgrounds

Saturday was a small, local horse show at the Driggs Arena. I like to support the local horse clubs, so I was debating entering Amigo in the Trails Course before a mounted patrol assignment later that day. I woke up that morning and ended up loading all three in the trailer. If nothing else, just bringing the herd to events is good for them. All three were sacked out at the trailer for most of the day while the events played out. I entered all three, Amigo, Smooch and Sara into the Trails Course competition. While I was signing up, I was persuaded to enter other events as well. Might as well, the money goes to fund future shows and the horse club. So I signed Smooch up for the Junior Western Pleasure class, barrels, and poles. Western Pleasure is basically riding the rail, in both directions, at walk, jog, and lope. You are judged on your equitation and how smoothly the horse does his work (I guess....I'm not much into showing so I don't know much about such matters). Anyway, the Junior class is for horses 5 years old and under. Our first class wasn't until after lunch break, so I hopped on Smooch (he as already sacked out and saddled) and warmed him up. Incidentally, I tried backing him up and he did it with a vengeance (apparently he retained what he learned three days earlier). So I spent a few minutes "unbacking" him up because he would only go in reverse for a while.
The competition, the Junior Western Pleasure was nerve wracking....they always are for us competitive types. The first half went relatively well. He walked, he jogged, and he loped a little for me. I was wondering how that was going to go because we haven't worked on our leads or even our transitions for that matter. And then they changed our direction and I think I misheard lope for jog and I started loping him (or trying to, it wasn't pretty) when I think I was supposed to be trotting. And I couldn't hold him to the rail. It was a disaster. But at least we got our green ribbon, 6th place out of 6 contestants! Well, we were the youngest horse and least experienced rider there....
Then onto the trail course which went better than I had hoped. There were two potential trouble spots, one where you had to get them loping in a short distance and then stop, and another where you had to side pass with a pole between their legs up to a mailbox and then side pass back. The trouble started from the beginning when he wouldn't let me on. I was given a warning by the judges and promptly mounted him while he was trying to escape me. It wasn't pretty, but after I was on he was on fire. He pretty much did everything including one part where you had to ride up to a barrel, pick up a rain slicker that was laying on top of it, ride around a junk pile back to the barrel and put the rain slicker back on the barrel. I couldn't believe he did it. I let him take his time walking up to the barrel and slicker sniffing them out, at which point he tried to pick it up himself. I snatched it out of his mouth, put it on the saddle in front of me, rode around the junk pile, placed the slicker back on the barrel. And he did it as if he'd done it a dozen times before. He even backed up through the "L", something we hadn't worked on before (if you can imagine the difficulty of backing a horse, and turning him at the same time...it's akin to backing up a trailer, it takes practice, skill, and patience). Then it was over the bridge with no problems, stop on the other side and acknowledge the judges, and then into a lope for about 20 or 30 yards. Which he actually did after a few trotting steps. Stop at a tire, turn to the left on his haunches (which he did), over some poles and stop before backing up five steps (which he did again with a vengeance). The next step, side passing, I decided to skip altogether because we really hadn't worked hard on it yet (too bad I didn't have an extra day to work with him because I'm sure I can get him side passing in a day). I just walked him straight up to the mailbox, opened it, shut it, and actually got a few side pass steps back the other way before I felt him tightening up, so I just moved on ahead, over the tarp to the rope gate which was the end of the course. I have no idea how we did in the competition. Probably not that great. I don't even know if we got DQ's for not trying to side pass.
Sara was next, but I remembered I had never side passed her before. So I took her over to a field to practice and found I had a battle on my hands. By the time I got her side passing, we were both worn out and I was running late for a mounted patrol assignment. So I missed Sara and Amigo's Trail Competition, and I missed barrels and poles on Smooch. Oh well, next time I guess...

The Colt Journal, Day 7: Driggs Fairgrounds

I am told that if a colt is going to buck, he'll do it by the 7th ride. I figured this was no. 7, and I had nothing to lose, and besides I thought he was ready, so I bridled young Smooch up for the evening. After letting him sack out with the bit until his mouth was calm, I hopped on to see how he was going to react. I know some people want to drive, or longe the colt with the bit before riding the first time, but I decided to do it this way instead. The arena was being used by 4H, so I took him to the warm up ring and jumped on. It took him some time to figure out what was going on. In fact, by the end of the ride he was still figuring things out, but that's ok. I worked on helping him translate the cues he had learned on the ground and with the rope halter into what he is supposed to be doing with the bit. All and all he did pretty well. I didn't think I was going to need to do as much teaching as I ended up doing. And he did go into a bucking and rearing fit at one point. Hopefully it's a good thing because he is learning he can't throw me, and he can't use rearing to try to find a way out of the bit.
After we were semi comfortable, I took him on a walk over to the trail course to let him use his noodle, forget about the uncomfortable hunk of metal in his mouth, and have a little mental work out with the obstacles. While in the obstacles I tried working on his back up (which if you recall I worked on a little in a previous session). This time I got off and backed up with the lesson, teaching it from the ground. After a few rounds, he began to get the idea. I took him back over to the warm up ring where a family had set up some poles, rode him through those a little, and called it quits.